


The Eighth Sin

by maeday_maeday



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Bisexual Female Character, Dark Fantasy, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, POV Female Character, Platonic Female/Male Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 05:21:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29869770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maeday_maeday/pseuds/maeday_maeday
Summary: I don't know how to sum this up because I don't entirely know where its going yet...but I can tell you there's gonna be magic, monsters, mystery, and a super-cute morally-ambiguous demon girl.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Right so I should probably preference this with the fact that I am not a writer... I don't really identify myself as such. I have not written anything aside from various essays and technical papers since I was 12...which was almost 20 years ago.
> 
> Long story short, I made a DnD character, got super invested in her, and the campaign was abruptly ended. So I remade her for a new campaign, got even more invested, and that campaign also ended abruptly. So this endeavor is mostly for my own sake - a self-indulgent fantasy to give this character some closure. 
> 
> Anyway, have mercy on my poor non-prose proficient soul hah. I hope at the bare minimum this is at least coherent.
> 
> Also, forgive my deliberate bastardization of French to create a ~fantasy~ language lol...I don't know how to effectively speak my native language, let alone create other ones.

**Prologue (?)**

Smoke.

Despite the sea-air and the soft rain, she could smell the smoke as strongly as if she was still standing in that smouldering ruin now belching black clouds into the evening sky. It was in her hair, on her skin, in her mouth.

She stood at the stern of the ship, bare feet going numb from the cold water but she did not feel it. She shifted the heavy wool blanket she’d been given, and the rough-spun fabric scratched across her shoulders.

_ The scratch of his freshly shaven jaw on her skin, just before he plants a kiss on her shoulder...The scrape of it as he moves his mouth up to her ear...The hiss of his breath… _

_ Smoke, smoke, smoke… _

Her eyes still burned even as she watched the city disappear under the horizon line. 

“ _ Madame _ ? You should come below decks, _ Madame _ .”

A gentle hand at her elbow brought her out of her reverie. She turned to look at the speaker, the Captain she recalled vaguely, who stood with his hand outstretched to her. She nodded once, but did not take the offered hand. If she loosened her grip on the blanket she might float away on the wind and scatter like ashes. The man turned his offer instead into a small sweeping gesture.

" _Aprae vous,_ _Madame_ ,”

She moved past him on shaking legs, nearly stumbling down the rain-slicked stairs. A pair of hands caught her as she slipped, and immediately let her go as she righted herself. He handled her as if she would burst into flames at any moment. Maybe she would.

She made it to the far side of the main deck, pausing at the top of the narrow stairs that led down into the hold. 

“ _ Madame _ ?”

She remained frozen on the edge of the first stair, the sudden pounding of her heart drowning out the crashing of the waves against the hull. The stairs ended in darkness, and she could smell the damp, the cold…

...the smoke.

“No..” a prayer.

“ _ NO! _ ” a promise.

She whirled on the man and shoved him hard with both hands. He fell back a few paces before catching himself on the railing. The blanket dropped from her shaking shoulders and she nearly tripped again as she bolted.

“No, no, no, no,  _ NO! _ ”

“Gastel! Gastel, get down here!” The man called from behind her as she lumbered to the middle of the deck, “Patrice, help me hold her!  _ Ahlons-ee! Veyet, veyet!! _ ” 

She was burning again, the once soothing rain becoming the sting of a thousand hot needles. She spun in frantic circles, choking on the hot coals in her throat as the two men circled her. 

“ _ Madame _ ,  _ Madame _ it is alright, you are sa-”

“ _ NO! _ ” She screamed again and there were flames on her tongue.

The Captain and his man grabbed her, less gently this time. She struggled, sobbing, kicking and thrashing, but they were stronger and they wrestled her to her knees. 

“Gastel, now! FUCKING NOW!”

A third man approached. Long, elegant fingers stretched towards her as he muttered under his breath. The air shimmered around him and she felt her limbs grow heavy. The flames beneath her skin began to dull to embers. 

“No, please..”

The long, cool fingers brushed the tangled, sodden hair from her face. There was a mark on the inside of his wrist..a tattoo? No, a brand. She blinked at him, slowly, so slowly. She could feel the cold of the rain now, and the way it made the remnants of her charred night dress cling to her body. It was blissfully cold.

“Shhh, there. It is over now,” His voice was a balm on blistering skin. Her eyelids were so heavy, and the oblivion they promised was so inviting. 

_ It is over now...over now...over... _

Her eyes closed. The darkness was complete. Out of the depths, a familiar laugh,

_ It is only the beginning. _


	2. 1. Yseulde

**Chapter 1: Yseulde**

Yseulde sat stiffly in the back corner of the tavern, toying with the mug of ale she had no real intention of drinking, and trying to ignore the thin layer of sweat beading on her skin. Bars made her uncomfortable. Crowded and rowdy bars even more so. 

This particular tavern, the only one in this small cross-roads town, was in fact both crowded and rowdy this evening. The incessant hum of conversation was interrupted periodically by a chorus of cheers here or a peal of bellowed laughter there. Yseulde begrudgingly took a sip of her drink, if only to stop herself from fidgeting for a moment. She wiped a sticking strand of her copper hair from her increasingly moist forehead. It was absolutely sweltering in here in her layers and leathers, but she dare not remove any. She was uncomfortable, sure, but without them she would feel naked. 

“Need a refill, love?” The halfling barmaid appeared at her side, tendrils of golden hair escaping her braid. 

“I am alright, thank you,” 

Her large round eyes took in Yseulde’s slightly disheveled and flushed appearance.

“Somethin’ to eat then? You’re looking a little..off,” She arched an eyebrow.

“Ah, that’s just how she looks,” a silken voice chimed in, “We’ll take a round though, if it please you darling,” The barmaid cast a sympathetic glance at Yseulde before strutting off in the direction of the kitchen as an elf and his two companions took seats at Yseulde’s table. 

“Hullo, Ginger darling,” the elf smiled, revealing several metallic teeth. 

“Elias,” Yseulde narrowed her eyes, “you are late.”

“Always so sunny, our Ginger,” Elias reclined in his seat, propping preternaturally long legs on the end of the table. “You remember Nolan and Lothe?” he gestured to the dark-haired human man and the darker-haired dwarf woman in turn. 

“It’s been a while,” Lothe mused.

“Nearly two years to the day if I remember correctly, which of course, I do.” Elias stretched a long arm across the table to claim one of the tankards the barmaid had just plunked down. He flashed her a smile and a wink while Nolan forked over a silver coin. 

“I suppose that must seem but a pittance to you elves,” Nolan grumbled. 

“Ah, but you forget that our dear Ginger is only half an elf, so the years must be twice the pittance!” Elias raised his mug to her, smirking. Yseulde resisted the urge to reach up and touch the elongated points of her otherwise human ears, instead taking another sip from her now warm ale. 

“As much as I adore our banter, Elias, I assume you ‘ave business with me?” She said mildly. Elias sighed, removing his legs from the table and flicking his curled black fringe from his eyes. 

“Alright then, straight to the point. Yes, he does have a new assignment for you,”

“What is it?”

“You know it doesn't work like that, girl,” Lothe said, pushing away her now empty mug. Yseulde sighed and leaned her elbows on the table.

“Right, the payment then?”

“Fifteen years,” Elias replied emphatically. Yseulde had to fight to maintain her composure. She raised her eyebrows at the elf.  _ Fifteen years off my service,  _ she thought, _ this is either going to be very very good, or very very bad.  _

“Don’t look at me like that Ginger darling, you know very well that I’m only the messenger. Nolan, if you please?” Nolan nodded, pushed his round spectacles up his nose and rolled up the sleeve of his left arm, revealing a raised mark on the inside of his wrist. Yseulde undid a strap on her jacket sleeve and did the same to reveal an identical mark on her own wrist; an equal-sided triangle with the line of each side extended beyond the point of intersection, and inscribed in a circle.

Nolan extended his arm towards her, and Yseulde took a second to steel herself. She hated this part. 

“Ready?” He asked, though Yseulde doubted very much if he actually cared that she was. She set her mouth in a hard line and nodded, offering her branded wrist to him. Nolan touched his mark to hers and muttered a few words Yseulde did not understand. She braced herself, but was still slammed back into her seat by the force of the vision. Images flashed through her mind at an alarming rate, too fast to comprehend, for several heartbeats before lingering on one final vision; a brilliant purple flag snapping in the wind, emblazoned in gold with an open book and an open eye above it. When the vision faded, she blinked a few times and snatched her arm back from the oracle, fighting to breathe normally. She’d been through this process dozens of times, but it was still disorienting nonetheless. Nolan seemed unperturbed, although a tad flushed. 

“Well? What do you make of it?” Elias looked at her expectantly.

“You tell me, you are the Broker,” Yseulde pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling the familiar post-vision nausea approaching. 

“Oh you’re no fun!” Elias scoffed.

“I still don’t understand why  _ she _ has been assigned to The Consortium,” Nolan whined, “What could He need someone like  _ you _ for in a place like  _ that?”  _

Yseulde shrugged, trying desperately to seem nonchalant. “Do not be jealous, Nolan. It is not a good look for you,” In truth, he did have a point. Nolan was a trained wielder of the arcane, schooled at a fancy academy in the south, while Yseulde was possibly the least magically inclined person on this side of the ocean. She also wondered what He could possibly want from her at the most prestigious seat of magic on the continent.

Nolan scoffed and took a long swig from his drink. Yseulde turned to Elias. “Will that be all then?”

“Always so hastey, our Ginger,” he shook his head in mock disappointment, “Very well then. The Capital is a five day ride from here. We will meet you there in seven days time to ‘check-in’. That gives you a couple days head start to get the next part of the assignment. Should be no problem for you, yeh?” 

Yseulde scowled. “I do not need supervision,”

“What you ‘need’ is irrelevant. We have our orders,” Elias looked at her meaningfully, and Yseulde’s scowl deepened.  _ A payment of fifteen years, and now supervision from one of His highest ranked Brokers...very very bad is starting to seem more likely.  _ Elias lifted his hands placatingly, his many, many rings glinting in the lamp-light. 

“Don’t look at me like that darling, you know I don’t make the rules. I only convey them,” he glanced at Nolan, “Well I suppose Nolan  _ conveys _ them and I am but a humble interpreter, and  _ enforcer _ .” He laid into the last word a little too thickly for Yseulde’s comfort. He flashed a metallic smile.

Yseulde rolled her eyes and got to her feet, her chair scraping noisily along the floor boards. “Fine. Ishvaseht. The Consortium. Seven days,” she said, re-closing the sleeve of her jacket.

“Until then, my lovely Ginger,” a wink and another glittering smile that Yseulde did not return. She turned on her heel and began weaving her way through the crowded bar. 

*

Outside the air was blessedly cool and smelled of imminent rain. A breeze picked up, bringing another smell; the fresh scent of tilled earth and manure from the nearby fields. The smell reminded Yseulde of open skies, and she drank it in as she made her way down the rutted street. Her meeting with Elias was the most conversation she had had in at least a week. That, along with the inevitable headache that always followed the ‘conveying’ of her assignment, left her feeling drained and irritable. 

In the near thirty years she’d been in service of her Master she had crossed paths with several Brokers, but Elias was by far the most insufferable. She shared a similar level of affection for Nolan, who always seemed to have a stick ever-so-firmly lodged in his arse. Lothe was alright, if ever-so-slightly terrifying, but fear was a dance Yseulde knew well. It was wit and charm she seemed to always stumble over. 

The breeze continued to tumble its way down the deserted street, and Yseulde lifted her long hair off of her neck to let it dry the perspiration there. The sounds of the tavern faded into a distant hum behind her as she walked. She had almost made it to the edge of town when the rain started. Well, less rain and more of a fine mist, but nonetheless it felt pleasant on the too hot skin of her face. She closed her eyes.

_ It's over now… _

_...it is only the beginning… _

Her eyes flew open and she whirled around to face the empty street, her hand reaching automatically for the long hunting knife at her hip. 

“‘Ello? Is someone there?” she said to the darkness, her voice dangerously close to cracking. Her only answer was the creak of a shop sign as it rocked back and forth gently in the wind. Yseulde swallowed hard, released the breath she had been holding and cleared her throat. She removed her hand from the hilt of her knife and ran it through her hair, uttering a string of curses to the darkened storefront. 

It was another half-hour’s walk to her camp at the edge of the woods outside of town. The overcast night offered little light to guide her way, but the elven half of her pedigree allowed her to see enough to pick her way through the trees. It was one of the few things she did not mind about it. She gave a low whistle as she approached her campsite, and a few moments later she was greeted by the sound of something large crashing through the bush. 

The shaggy grey head of a great wolf pushed its way between two rather imposing rosehip bushes, quickly followed by a shaggy grey body as tall as her hip. The beast let out a yip and bounded forward at Yseulde, who, recognizing what was about to happen, sidestepped the two massive paws that were about to connect with her chest. 

“Down boy, no, ‘owl! DO NOT-” her command was cut off as the wolf threw his body sideways in his excitement, colliding with her legs and knocking her off balance. As she attempted to avoid another collision, she tripped over a root and fell to her hands and knees. Howl was immediately in her face, lashing her with his massive wolf tongue. 

‘Stop, ‘owl, stop, STOP!” she cried, laughing and gasping for air. The wolf sat promptly on his haunches, his bad foot stuck out at its familiar odd angle and his tail beating the ground eagerly. “I ‘ave only been gone a couple of ‘ours you  _ grahnd ideeote,’  _ she admonished him, getting to her feet and ruffling his ears, “but I missed you too,  _ mahn emee,'' as _ she bent to plant a kiss between his golden eyes, Howl sneezed directly in her face and then proceeded to rise and plod off through the trees. Yseulde sighed, and wiping the remnants of wolf-sneeze from her face, followed his wagging tail.

At her meager camp, which was less a ‘camp’ and more a patch of mostly-rootless ground, Howl settled himself down and began gnawing enthusiastically on a stick. Her bag, bow, and sword belt were where she had left them, leaned against a nearby tree. She made a point to at the very least not  _ look _ like she was armed to the teeth when she ventured into these backwater towns. It tended to cause more problems with the townsfolk than it solved. Her quiver was laid on its side, its contents splayed onto the moss. A couple of her arrows had noticeable teeth marks, and some of the fletchings were caked in drool. Yseulde gave Howl a meaningful look.

“Really?” He continued to chew on his stick, but at least had the good sense to look somewhat apologetic. She rolled her eyes, gathered up the arrows and set about collecting some tinder for a fire. 

‘You are not going to like where we are ‘eaded next,’ she said apologetically to Howl as she crouched to strike her flint into the little pile of dead leaves, “We ‘ave to go to the Capital, Ishvaseht.” Howl fixed his amber eyes on her, still gnawing away on the end of the stick. The kindling caught finally, tepid flames struggling against the dampness of the night. “That means you will ‘ave to be on your own for more than a couple of ‘ours,  _ mahn emee _ . Ishvaseht is a big city, and you know ‘ow city folk are. Typically they do not take too kindly to being knocked over by a furry monster,” Howl responded by flopping onto his side, one end of the stick still in his maw, and slapping his long fluffy tail on the ground. Yseulde snorted. “ _ Ideeote.” _

_ * _

The benefit to having a great wolf as a companion is that the nights were never cold. Yseulde stretched and rubbed at her eyes, blinking in the pink light of dawn as it filtered in through the trees. Propping herself up on her elbows, she tried to shove Howl, who was doing his best impression of a blanket, off of her.

The downside of having a great wolf as a companion is that they are very, very heavy. And they sleep like the dead. 

“‘Owl..’owl get. Off. Of. Me.” Howl groaned and rose to his feet, stomping directly on Yseulde’s stomach in the process. “AH!  _ Mahn dyu..”  _ she fell back and rolled onto her side, praying all her organs remained intact. Howl snuffled at her ear and she swatted him away. “Ach! Stop acosting me you absolute SPOON.  _ Occupeh-twah de tes oynyons! Veyet, veyet!”  _ The beast snorted and wandered off to relieve himself on an unsuspecting shrub. 

Yseulde sat up, wiping away the wolf slobber from her face with her jacket sleeve and making a mental note to wash it before she made contact with civilization again. Howl trotted back to her as she was buckling on her sword belt, carrying what looked like a young tree in his mouth, the branches drooping sadly. “Were you planning on carrying that all the way to the Capital?” Howl just wagged his tail and adjusted his jaws around the trunk of his victim. Yseulde snorted, slinging her pack and bow over a shoulder. “Alright..come along then, we ‘ad better be going. I suppose we will ‘ave to acquire a ‘orse,”

*

Acquiring a horse, as it turned out, was the easy part. It did not take long in this part of the country to find someone willing to part with anything for a gold coin. Getting the horse to stop panicking at the sight of a great wolf almost as big as itself was always the tricky part. 

After spending the better part of an hour coaxing, negotiating, and at times begging the poor steed to coexist peacefully with her lupine companion, the endeavor ended the same way it always did; Yseulde swearing heartily, threatening to feed the damn thing to Howl and be done with it, and then inevitably just sending Howl away by shooting an arrow off into the trees for him to chase. This usually gave her about a ten minute head start before he realized what was happening, picked up her trail and followed along after her. 

Yseulde was hopeless with animals. Howl seemed to be the only one she’d encountered in her 50-odd years that seemed to tolerate her. She had found him almost a decade ago as a pup, caught in a hunter’s snare. His back leg had been badly damaged, and Yseulde had paid a hedge witch the last of her silver and two strands of her hair to fix it, but it never fully healed. He’d followed her around ever since. He even obeyed her, on occasion. She had never understood why he insisted on following her. She had tried a number of times to set him ‘free’, so to speak, but she never succeeded. He always found her eventually. Maybe great wolves understood the concept of a life-debt. Maybe the Gods just thought it would be hilarious. Either way, most of the time she was grateful for his company, however moist.

Horses, however, she was certain the Gods placed in her path purely to torture her. Yseulde had come to accept that she would never become accustomed to the magnificent, intelligent, and absolutely terrifying creatures. They had no right to be that beautiful, and also so large and capable of violence at the same time. She  _ could _ ride, in the sense that she knew which way to face in the saddle and how to not fall out of it, and she knew enough to get the animal from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ without damaging any part of it aside from its patience. Past that, she was entirely useless with them, and generally preferred to avoid them unless absolutely necessary. 

Unfortunately, since time was apparently of the essence, today it was necessary. Yseulde reluctantly hauled herself up into the old cracked saddle as Howl crashed off into the brush. She clicked her heels into the sides of her new travel partner and set off northward.

The rest of the day passed without incident. She avoided the main road when she could. This time of year it would be getting more and more well-travelled, and although Yseulde had no affinity with animals, she had even less for people. This far south, the forests were still sparse enough to travel through on horseback, and often gave way to large expanses of open ground which eventually swelled into rolling hills. 

The horse, a stormy grey mare whom Yseulde had dubbed ‘Mi’lady’ for the time being, was pliant enough. However, it seemed that each tap on her side or pull of the reins Yseulde made to direct her came with the sense that she was being very much inconvenienced. At least they had made good time. 

As the sun began its descent behind the distant mountains, Yseulde brought Mi’lady to a halt near a small stream, removing her saddle and looping a length of rope through her bridle with great trepidation. She had seen a horse bite clean through a man’s hand once. Granted, it was a  _ cappelusca  _ \- a demon born of a union between the ocean and all the spite of the Nine Hells - but it looked like a horse. Yseulde would never be rid of the image. 

Yseulde managed to tie the mare to a tree without offending her too greatly, leaving enough slack on the line that she could move to and from the stream as she pleased. She tossed half an apple to the horse, then moved a little ways down the bank to get a fire going. Howl would still be about half a day behind them. He was fast, but not as fast as a galloping horse, and he would have to stop more often. She would miss his warmth tonight. It was still early enough in the season that the nights could get cold enough to see her breath and set her teeth to chattering. The first meager flames of her fire were just beginning to scrabble at the kindling when she heard an unexpected sound. It sounded like...singing?

If you could call it that. It was singing in the same way that any ‘special’ in a low-end city tavern was technically ‘food’, in that it only counted as such if you were already incredibly drunk. Yseulde listened as the ‘song’ fumbled its way through the trees, deciding after a few moments that it would be wise to investigate her unexpected neighbor. She slung her bow and quiver over her shoulder and began to move as silently as she could through the trees. 

The subtle art of stalking was one of the first skills she had learned when she had come into the service of her Master, and was possibly her greatest asset.Tracing a target, following in their tracks, listening but not interacting - that was her bread and butter. Her favorite trails to follow were always out here in the wilds. 

Which was why it was extremely alarming to her when she realized she was terribly and hopelessly lost.

Yseuled had been following the sound of the singing for what had felt like hours, but judging by the amount of daylight still remaining, it was as though no time had passed at all. 

There was little in the way of physical evidence of movement through the brush - no footprints, no pattern of broken branches - and everytime she felt like she was closing in on the voice, it seemed to come from a new direction. 

A vague sense of unease coated her skin a sheen of sweat despite the growing chill in the evening air. She should probably turn around...this was a waste of time. It was probably just a mockingbird. Strange for them to be so far north, but stranger things had happened she was sure. 

The song started anew, seemingly from her left and seemingly much closer than it had been a moment ago. So close...and she was already out here. She should probably make sure it was actually a bird, right? One can’t be too careful when one travels alone, or something.

She swallowed the still nagging apprehension and wiped the perspiration from her brow, turning to face the direction of the sound. She made it all of about ten steps before a large hand roughly clamped around her mouth. 


End file.
